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The Building of the Nation 

BY 

NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER 



ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE ANNUAL LUNCHEON OF THE 
ASSOCIATED PRESS AT THE WALDORF-ASTORIA, NEW YORK, 
APRIL TWENTY-FIFTH, NINETEEN HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN 






ADDITIONAL COPIES MAY BE HAD ON APPLICATION TO 

DIVISION OF INTERCOURSE AND EDUCATION 

CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE 

407 WEST II7TH STREET, NEW YORK CITY 






ji. 



THE BUILDING OF THE NATION 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Asso- 
ciated Press: — For the honor of the invitation to 
be your guest I am deeply sensible, and for that 
honor I wish first to express my grateful apprecia- 
tion. It is no small compliment to be permitted to 
speak at a time like this to a great company of men, 
drawn from all parts of our nation, representing 
every shade of opinion, who are single-minded in 
their devotion to truth and to its interpretation as 
they see and understand it, and in their devotion to 
our common America. 

In this presence of men of affairs, so closely in 
touch with the movement of opinion all over the 
world, accustomed to guide, to express, to formulate 
it, there is nothing that I can possibly say that you 
do not already know. But I remember that it is out of 
the reflections of individuals, and out of their reaction 
to the changing course of events that first public 
opinion and then history is made. 

If any significance be attached to what I shall 
briefly say in your presence, it can only be because 
it represents the attempt of one American who feels 
keenly the responsibility of his country and of its 
entire citizenship at this moment when the world 
stands at a crossroads in its path of progress. If 
we stand at that crossroads irresolute, paralyzed 
of word and will, history will have one story to tell. 

[3] 



If we turn to the right and take the path that leads 
upward to new achievement and to lasting honor, it 
will have a very different story to tell. If we should 
turn to the left and follow the winding and rocky 
road that leads down to a darkening gloom — we 
know not where — history will have yet another record 
to make of the American people and of their capacity 
to represent civilization. 

Leaders of Civilization 

It is just about twenty years ago since George 
Meredith, writing to The London Daily News, said 
that since the benignant outcome of the greatest of 
civil wars he had come to look upon the American 
people as the leaders in civilization. That is a proud 
and ennobling judgment, and we may well search 
our minds and our hearts to ascertain whether it be 
true, and whether we are competent for the high 
honor that so distinguished an observer of his kind 
proffered to us as his personal judgment. 

The question which I ask in your presence this 
afternoon is this : Have we an American nation? If 
so, is that nation conscious of a unity of purpose and 
of ideals? If so, what is to be the policy of that 
nation in the immediate future ? 

It must not be forgotten that nations are compara- 
tively new in human history. There were no nations 
in the ancient world. Men were grouped in empires, 
in races, as followers of a religion, as clansmen owing 
allegiance to a chief, but not in nations as we use the 

[4] 



word. There were no nations until the dream of a 
universal political empire had passed away, until the 
stately magnificence of Rome had broken into a 
hundred fragments. It was then and only then that 
a new organizing force made itself felt in the 
thoughts and deeds of men. 

This new consciousness of unity was in part the 
outgrowth of unity of race origin, in part the out- 
growth of unity of language, in part the outgrowth 
of unity of institutional life, in part the outgrowth of 
unity of military and religious tradition. It seized 
hold of the minds of men in most practical fashion. 
The result is that from the time of the death of 
Charlemagne to the time of the present German 
Emperor the history of the world is the history of 
nation-building and of the by-products of nation-build- 
ing. A nation is scientifically defined as a popula- 
tion of an ethnic unity inhabiting a geographic unity 
under a common form of government. The excep- 
tions are quite numerous enough to prove the rule. 

As the centuries have followed one another it is not 
difficult to see how the several nations have endeav- 
ored to possess themselves of territory that is a 
geographic unit. They have sought natural boun- 
daries, whether of high mountains, or of broad 
rivers, or of the sea itself. One war after another is 
to be explained in terms of a nation's definite pur- 
pose to possess itself of a geographic unity as its 
home. There has been by no means equal care 
taken by the nations to establish and to protect an 

[5] 



ethnic unity. A strong people has usually felt con- 
fident that it could hold an alien element in subjection 
and yet preserve national integrity and unity of spirit. 
So one after another of the greater nations of the 
world has, in seeking for geographic unity, insisted 
on incorporating in its own body politic alien and 
often discordant elements and holding them in stern 
subjection. The examples are too familiar to be 
recited here. 

Nemesis of Nation Building 

This process of nation-building has gone on until 
the nation has come to be conceived as an end in 
itself, as superior to law, to the conventions of mor- 
ality, and to the precepts of religion. A form of 
patriotism has been developed all over the world 
which finds in the nation itself the highest human 
end. The logical result, and indeed the almost 
necessary result, of this type of thinking is the war 
which is now creeping over the world's civilization 
and destroying it with the sure pitilessness of an 
Alpine glacier. 

This war is the nemesis of nation-building con- 
ceived as an end in itself. Unless a nation, like an 
individual, have .some purpose, some ideal, some 
motive which lies outside of and beyond self-interest 
and self-aggrandizement, war must continue on the 
face of this earth until the day when the last and 
strongest man, superb in his mighty loneliness, shall 
look out from a rock in the Caribbean upon a world 

[6] 



that has been depopulated in its pursuit of a false 
ideal, and be left to die alone with none to mourn 
or to bury him. 

In the history of nations the story of our America 
has a place that is all its own. The American nation 
came into being in response to a clear and definite 
purpose. A theory of human life and of human 
government was conceived and put into execution 
on a remote and inaccessible part of the earth's sur- 
face. The moving cause of the American nation 
was the aspiration for civil and political liberty and 
for individual freedom which was already stirring in 
the minds of western Europe in the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries. This aspiration gained in 
force as the art of printing multiplied books and as 
the periodical press came into existence. The high- 
minded, the courageous, the venturesome were drawn 
across the wide ocean toward the west, carrying with 
them for the most part the liberal ideas and the 
advanced thought that were steadily increasing their 
hold upon the people of western Europe. Great 
Britain, Holland, France, were responding in steadily 
increasing measure to the same ideals that led the 
the Puritan to Massachusetts Bay and the Cavalier 
to Virginia. 

America Not Yet a Nation 

On this Atlantic shore distances were great and 
communication difficult. In addition there were 
social, economic and religious differences that kept 

[7] 



the struggling colonists apart. The result was that 
there grew up here not a nation, but the material out 
of which a nation could be made. There is a sense, 
a deep and striking sense, in which the same remains 
absolutely true today. There is not yet a nation, but 
the rich and fine materials out of which a true nation 
can be made by the architect with vision to plan and 
by the builder with skill adequate to execute. 

When a common oppression forced the separate 
colonists together they still sadly lacked that devo- 
tion to a unity higher than any of its component 
parts which would have saved so much loss and so 
much suffering during the days of revolution and of 
the first steps toward a National Government. An 
enormous step forward was taken when the National 
Government was built. In the adoption of the 
Constitution of the United States, the cornerstone 
was laid for one of the most splendid structures in all 
the history of nations. Then quickly followed sharp 
political divergence. There were those who would 
lay stress upon the new national unity; there were 
still more who thought it important to emphasize the 
separate elements out of which that unity had been 
composed. The judicial logic of Marshall and the 
convincing eloquence of Webster were the chief uni- 
fying and nation-building forces in the generation 
that followed. Meanwhile sharp differences of eco- 
nomic interest were manifesting themselves, and the 
fatal question of slavery pressed forward both as an 
economic and as a political issue. The new nation, 

[8] 



which had already made such progress upon the 
foundations laid by the fathers, fell apart, and only 
after one of the most terrible and destructive of civil 
wars were the ruins of the disaster cleared away and 
the ground prepared for the next step in construc- 
tion. Here again mistakes were made so numerous 
and so severe that the unifying and nation-building 
process was checked and held back for many years. 
Then two new sets of separating and disintegrat- 
ing forces began to make themselves strongly felt. 
First, the economic differences which must of neces- 
sity manifest themselves over so large and so diverse 
a territory now revealed themselves with new force — 
in part as a result of the industrial revolution and in 
part as a result of purely American conditions, — as 
involving a class conflict between capital and labor. 
Soon there were signs that citizenship, with its com- 
pelling allegiance to the common weal, was to be 
subordinated in discouraging fashion, not once but 
often, to the immediate interests and policies of an 
economic class. 

Echo of Old World Feuds 

Second, the immigration from other countries, 
which had been for a long time substantially homo- 
geneous became increasingly and rapidly heterogen- 
eous. New nationalities, new languages, new racial 
affinities were drawn upon for the recruitment of the 
population of the United States. The hopes and 
the ambitions which loo and 200 years before had 

[9] 



been the peculiar property of the people of Western 
Europe had now spread far away to the East and to 
the South. With this heterogeneous immigration 
there came, in no inconsiderable measure, the echo 
of the Old World animosities and feuds and hates. 
These did not manifest themselves in any direct 
sense as anti-American, but they did manifest them- 
selves with sufficient strength to deprive America of 
a unity of attitude, of feeling, and of policy in dealing 
with the international relations which every day 
grow in importance and in significance. 

So it is that at this moment, with a world war rag- 
ing about us and a Presidential campaign opening in 
front of us, with years full of fate stretched out for 
us to walk in, we are not sure of our national unity 
of thought and feeling and purpose because of the 
presence of disintegrating elements and forces which 
weaken our sense of unity at home and which deprive 
us of the influence abroad which attaches to unity at 
home. The grave problem before the American 
people to-day is that of completing the process of 
nation-building. It is the problem of setting our 
house in order. It is the problem of integrating 
America. It is the problem of subordinating every 
personal ambition, every class interest and policy, 
every race attachment, to the one dominant idea of 
an America free, just, powerful, forward-facing, that 
shall stand out in the history of nations as the name 
of a people who conceive the mission and their true 
greatness to lie in service to mankind. We are the 

[lo] 



inheritors of a great tradition. What poets and 
philosophers have dreamed, that we are trying day 
by day to do. Our stumblings, our blunders, our 
shortcomings are many ; but if we keep our hearts 
clean and our heads clear he who a thousand years 
from now writes the history of liberty and justice and 
happiness among men will be able to tell to those 
far-off generations a proud story of the rise and 
influence of the American nation. 

We find here everything which is needed for a 
great nation. The task before us today is to make 
it. The task before the American people is nothing 
more nor less than a speedy continuation, and, if it 
be practicable, the completion of the process of nation- 
building. It is the problem of the integration of 
America about those great fundamental principles 
and purposes which the very name America itself 
brings to our minds and which this flag stirs to 
expression on every lip. 

Feel America in Our Hearts 

We know in our hearts what America means. The 
problem is to teach it to our fellows ; to share with 
them an understanding and an appreciation of it ; to 
unite with them in an expression of it. We wish to 
build a nation fit to serve ; a nation that does not find 
its end in its own aggrandizement, however great that 
be ; a nation that cannot find its purpose complete 
in amassing all the wealth of Golconda, but that can 
only achieve its aim by carrying a message to man- 

[II] 



kind of what has been found possible on this conti- 
nent. Saxon and Celt, Teuton and Slav, Latin and 
Hun, all are here not as aliens but as citizens; not 
as immigrants but as members of a body politic 
which is new in conception in human history, as it is 
new in its own thought of its high purpose. Can 
America integrate itself at this crisis ; can it show 
that here is a nation which, out of various and varied 
ethnic elements, can be brought into a genuine unity 
by devotion to high principle and by moral purpose 
before the face of all mankind ? Can we make an 
America that shall go down the corridors of time 
with a proud place on the pages of history ? 

We must remember that the greatest empires have 
fallen as well as risen. We must remember that the 
most powerful dynasties have passed away as well as 
come into existence. There is no reason to suppose 
that our America is going to escape the everlasting 
law of change. We know its history and its origin. 
We have seen its rise. We know its present state. 
Who can predict how many hundreds or thousands 
of years it will take before the forests will be felled 
and the streams will be dried, and this great fertile 
continent of ours, like the plains of ancient Iran 
where civilization began, will become a desert, fit only 
for the exploring parties of the archaeologist ? When 
that time comes, what do we want to have written 
on the pages of history of those who lived for hun- 
dreds or perhaps thousands of years on this continent? 
What do we want to have said about the way in 

[12] 



which America met the greatest crisis of the world's 
so-called modern history in 1916? Do we wish a 
nation weak, broken to pieces, irresolute, filled with 
conflicting and discordant voices, or do we wish for 
a nation unified, strong, sympathetic, and ready to 
respond to the cause of a common purpose to serve 
all humanity, even though the rest of humanity be 
at war with itself ? 

Opportunity Knocking 

The year 191 6 is but one member of an infinite 
series. Countless aeons have gone before it and 
countless aeons will come after it. The physical 
forces of nature will go their way through indefinite 
time, performing their alloted functions, obeying 
their peculiar laws and undergoing those manifold 
changes and transmutations which make up the 
heavens and the earth. Not so with the reputation 
and the influence of a nation. Opportunity will not 
knock forever at any door ; it is knocking now at 
the door of the American people. If they are able 
to rise to an appreciation of their own part in the 
world, of their own controlling principles and policies ; 
if they are able to put aside every self-seeking, 
every distracting, every brutal appeal, then no one 
can tell what light may illumine the page on which 
the history of our nation will yet be written. 

It is nearly sixty years since Abraham Lincoln in 
his debates with Senator Douglas made much use of 
the Scriptural saying that '' a house divided against 

[13] 



itself cannot stand ;" and he added, '' I do not expect 
the house will fall, but I do expect the house will 
cease to be divided." So Mr. President, I say to-day 
to this influential company of Americans, we do 
expect, every one of us, that our house will cease to 
be divided. We do expect that our America will 
come to full consciousness of its purpose; that the 
serene courage of Washington, the constructive 
genius of Hamilton, the keen human insight and 
sympathy of Jefferson, the patient wisdom of Lincoln, 
will not have been in vain in teaching us what our 
country is and may become. Shall we catch sight of 
that something higher than selfishness, higher than 
material gain, higher than the triumph of brute force, 
which alone can lead a nation up to those high places 
that become sacred in history, and from which influ- 
ence descends in a mighty torrent, to refresh, to 
vivify and inspire all mankind? 

It is as true today as it was in ancient times, that 
where there is no vision the people perish. We can 
make an America with a vision. We cannot make 
it without. 



[14] 



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